The erotic reliefs of Hindu temples with their gravity-defying and anatomy-challenging positions have found a new modern competitor in the Ukrainian crisis. Each party wants to get the Jews on their side, while claiming that the other side is anti-Jewish and a Jewish puppet at once. This impossible, Kama-Sutraesque position is the result of extremely... Read More

This year, spring in France is unusually cold and rainy, following on the heels of a frosty and long winter. Only the last Sunday was different: the sun pushed the clouds away for the first time in months, and immediately the lucid Parisian air warmed up and trees broke out in full bloom. The French... Read More

A couple of Ukrainians are examining some graffiti: Kick a kike and save Russia! One Ukrainian says to the other “Great idea! But who wants to save Russia?” This joke popped into my mind while reading the white nationalist calls: Stop immigration and save the White Race. The means are laudable, but the stated end... Read More

Blood, betrayal, torture, and surrender are intervowen in the story of an Italian Jew, Dr Ariel Toaff, as if penned by his compatriot Umberto Eco. Dr Toaff stumbled onto a frightful discovery, was horrified but bravely went on, until he was subjected to the full pressure of his community; he repented, a broken man. Dr... Read More

Summer heat presents a great challenge to the non-air-conditioned world. When thermometers soar into the roaring forties (or into triple digits for Fahrenheit adepts), mankind slows down and seeks salvation in watery and shady places. Families with children depart for seashore, and elegant couples perambulate to the mountains. But the most sophisticated defence against sticky... Read More

At the height of the Great Cultural Revolution, the Chinese had the temerity to embark upon a monumental, nature-changing enterprise: they decided to exterminate ALL flies. The spirit of their solidarity was so powerful that they succeeded. For a while, they enjoyed peaceful summer evenings without this great annoyance. No buzz, no fuss: life was... Read More

I America prepares for a long war. It is called ‘the war on terrorism’, but the name has no meaning but ‘a war on the enemy’. Noam Chomsky gave a witty definition, “terrorism is what they do to us”. However, in the course of this war, thousands of our brothers by Adam and Eve will... Read More

About Israel Shamir

Israel Shamir has written extensively on public affairs, primarily relating to the Israel/Palestine conflict and Russia, including three books, Galilee Flowers, Cabbala of Power and Masters of Discourse available in English, French, German, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Norwegian, Swedish, Italian, and Hungarian.

He describes himself as a native of Novosibirsk, Siberia, who he moved to Israel in 1969, served as paratrooper in the army and fought in the 1973 war, afterwards turning to journalism and writing. During the late 1970s, he joined the BBC in London later living in Japan. After returning to Israel in 1980, Shamir wrote for the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz, and was the Knesset spokesman for the Israel Socialist Party (Mapam), also translating and annotating the cryptic works of S.Y. Agnon, the only Hebrew Nobel Prize winning writer, from the original Hebrew into Russian.

His perspective on the Israel/Palestine conflict was summed up in The Pine and the Olive, published in 1988 and republished in 2004. That same year, he was received in the Orthodox Church of Jerusalem and Holy Land, being baptised Adam by Archbishop Theodosius Attalla Hanna. He now lives in Jaffa and spends much time in Moscow and Stockholm; he is father of three sons.

I have not read fhrough the comments, so apologise in case someone has mentioned this. This seems to be Trump's response to the current Syrian mess:
Trump Asked Saudi King For $4 Billion So US Troops Can Leave Syria
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-03-17/trump-asked-saudi-king-4-billion-so...

The Novichok formula is available in science journals, Einstein. The goal of Novichok evidently was to to have an easily made nerve agent that did not require complex labs. Four EU countries are currently known to be experimenting with it right now- UK, Slovakia, Sweden and Czech Rep. Russia is n...

It's a reply for Vojkan comment
I think that though ordinary Russians have a hard time accepting it, as just any people in the world would have a hard time accepting it if they were the ones demonised,
Well, seeing such an injustice we feel being insulted and the hate and contempt probably are...

Yet in every criminal investigation, you look for motives in order to find suspects and for the suspicion to be plausible, the motive has to be compelling. When it comes to Russia though, anything goes, and no fact should be allowed that doesn't fit the narrative Russia = sheer evil. I think that...

Let's say that there are some useful formulas that fit our perception of reality and that have proven to work in many areas of technical engineering. That they don't encompass the whole of reality is obvious to anyone having a basic apprehension of physics.

You really think Russia is so stupid to use a nerve gas of which it is asserted that it is 60ties or 70ties Russian ?
The only explanation I can think of explaining this show is that Brussel asked GB to set it up, in return for some concesssion in the present GB EU Brexit negotiations.
As to th...

How can you say they were "murdered" when both are still alive, albeit in a critical state? Must you be wrong all the time?
This was obviously a very sloppy operation and the manner it has been seized upon, coupled with the lack of any substantive investigation as revealed by the police spoke...

There may be another angle to the Skripal case...
Former UK diplomat Craig Murray...he of the Assange / Podesta email non-hack saga...has some interesting info here...
'...There is no doubt that Skripal was feeding secrets to MI6 at the time that Christopher Steele was an MI6 officer in Moscow,...

We don’t know that. PR is one thing, what happens behind the curtain is completely different. You surely do not expect Mattis coming out to press shouting “I surrender.” Oh, I know well that Mattis is not necessarily stating what he really thinks. Rather, his message addresses both those f...

I would prefer a widespread mutiny from members across the armed services, a mass walkout of hundreds of thousands, whether by feigning illness or by moral objections to foreign policies. Even the sabotaging of military equipment to send a clear message that, "we'll defend the homeland but won't ...

So I am inclined to believe that it was English that did the deed
Makes sense.
I am not.
Everything in "spy game" is smoke and mirrors, so anyone can construct any story and believe anything.
I go for 70/30 Russians/Brits and Co.
Actually, don't care much about all that. One gets into that ga...

It is apparent that Russians did have a reason to kill that double agent to dissuade other Russian traitors.
But then English did have also a reason to kill the Russian spy. The Russian spy did spill all the beans to English. By that he also did gain valuable knowledge of English interrogation m...

And while all the fanboys are in trance about the SciFi vapoware, back on Earth it comes down to simple assassinations, Borgia style.
True, the poison was apparently high-tech, so, maybe that's the area where Russians spent the most of their time and resources in the arms race. In developing too...

The former has already been voiced by Mad Dog Mattis, whose strategic calculation (as if he has any idea) is apparently unchanged by these weapons.
We don't know that. PR is one thing, what happens behind the curtain is completely different. You surely do not expect Mattis coming out to press sh...

US-advised predatory corporate raiding of the 1990's gutted the manufacturing, financial and social infrastructure of the country. Repairing the massive large-scale economic and cultural arson is not corrected in a TV season but over several decades. Sorry to rain simple reality upon your phony w...

Worth repeating...
'...But I think we urgently need some small clash of Russia with USA just for everybody (even most silly US citizens) to understand where they are and who the[y] are until big one happened...'
Absolutely...sometimes strong delusions of grandeur can only be punctured by a ...

Well...that would go straight in the face of the prevalent mantra here and they simply can't have it.
"Putin speech changed the world" is the party line, apparently, around here. Facts don't matter, the party line is the fact. Nothing new there as far as Russians are concerned. They've mastere...

Probably, so what?
Putin was not the worst case for Russia and for the whole world.
But it was a just a lucky happening.
As for US we can see one clown replaces previous one and nothing gonna change. It doesn't depend on clown's background, they all were produced on the same factory. And this f...